Nine years ago, I took a course to get my email list off the ground. One of the assignments was to try and get featured in front of other people’s audience. How? You message the makers of the tools you’re already using, show them how you’ve used their software in a successful or unique way, and offer to do a write-up about it for their fans.

One of the people I messaged was Noah Kagan. I had been using one of his tools, SumoMe, to get people to opt in to my newsletter via banners, popups, etc. When I showed him my total opt-ins and conversion rate, he congratulated me and asked whether I had sent the email in hopes of them promoting us.

Knowing that Noah and the creator of my course were friends, I somehow figured he was clued in to the exercise, and I responded with something to the effect of, “Yeah, obviously!” Worse, I did it in such a crude way that I hurt his feelings. A day later, I got a message from the course creator. “Dude! What the fuck? How would you feel if someone said that to you?”

I’ll never forget that moment. I still get chills just thinking about it. I’m a sensitive guy and usually pretty in tune with other people’s emotions. That’s one reason why I became a writer. It still shocks me how my emotional radar could have been so on the fritz. I guess I was riding the high of success a little too early. As a result, I put my foot in my mouth in a massive way.

I apologized to both of them, and I sent Noah a gift card to his favorite taco place, Tacodeli in Austin. I never heard back from “my boss” in the course, but Noah eventually replied: “It’s all good.” It wasn’t exactly the kind of closure you’d hope for, but it was the best I could get in that moment. So I took it, and that was that. I knew those two bridges were likely burned forever, but oh well. You live, and you learn.

About a year later, I ended up writing a guest post for Noah’s company. I don’t remember the details of how it came about, but I don’t think I was in touch with him directly. At the very least, it was reassuring that he didn’t hold enough of a grudge against me to nip any collaboration in the bud.

Fast-forward eight more years, and I recognize a familiar name on the roster of books to be published in 2024: Noah Kagan. His first book with a major publisher, Million Dollar Weekend was a title I knew I had to summarize for Four Minute Books.

Recently, I had been making an effort to be fast in publishing new titles quickly, and while summarizing a book on a Tuesday (which is the most common release day) to release the post on a Wednesday (my publishing day) is certainly possible, it’s far from ideal. The solution? You ask for an advance copy. Given each summary gets promoted to 100,000+ email subscribers, it’s a good amount of free press, so technically, it’s a win-win. But not every author wants their book summarized and, more importantly, not every author is someone you insulted badly, even if it happened almost a decade ago.

I “beat my inner swine dog,” as we say in Germany, and sent Noah a brief email explaining what I was doing and whether he’d like to have his book summarized. His one-line response? “Bro let’s do it!” He gave me an advance copy and completely trusted me to deliver. I hope I did. I’m happy with the summary I wrote, and he liked it. I published it one day after the book’s release, and it even made it onto our Youtube channel just a few days later. May it sell plenty of books while already helping readers start their businesses!

No matter what you think, believe, or how you feel in the moment: The future is not yet decided. You never know how one of your countless life paths will play out years from now. What looks like a massive rock blocking the way may actually be a park bench, offering you to sit and take a break for ten years. Then, the road might open up again all on its own. What feels like an ended relationship is actually one that just needs some distance. And what seems like terrible luck today may turn into good fortune tomorrow.

The future is the future because it’s filled with infinite possibility at any given time. That’s hard to comprehend but important not to neglect. Tomorrow is not set in stone until tomorrow has happened — and since you never know, you might as well always stay open to it.

In one episode of Vikings, warrior Hvitserk happens upon a strange man in his Norwegian town of Kattegat. The man has traveled far, all the way from Asia, to now offer his wares in the town. Picking up a small wooden idol, Hvitserk asks if, like the idols he knows from Norse rituals, this one, too, portrays a god. The man breaks into hearty laughter — how could anyone mistake the big-bellied Buddha for a god?

When Hvitserk returns to his girlfriend that night, he relays some of the man’s teachings to her. “Everything is One. And only the One is. Life is a bridge, build no house upon it. It’s a river, but don’t cling to its banks. You’re on a journey.” Hvitserk is not entirely sure whether the Buddhist is serious or just messing with him, but he is now curious about enlightenment.

The next day, sitting across his brother Ivar, the current king of Kattegat, Hvitserk holds the little Buddha statue in his hand. Ivar once again laments Hvitserk’s conflictedness. Having abandoned another one of their brothers to join forces with Ivar, Hvitserk has regretted his choice ever since. But now, thanks to a new perspective…

“You jumped ship to be with me, because you thought the gods planned it,” Ivar says. “But then everything I say or do makes you unhappy as if you never meant to jump ship at all.” “There is no contradiction,” Hvitserk responds, “because it’s possible that everything is part of the One.”

In a different world, at a different time, Bruce Lee once explained Zen as follows: “Zen reveals that there is nowhere for man to go out of this world; no tavern in which he can overcome anxiety; no jail in which he can expiate his guilt.” Therefore, if life is inescapable, we might as well embrace it.

“Instead of telling us what the problem is, Zen insists that the whole trouble is just our failure to realize that there is no problem.” As soon as Hvitserk stops brooding about his decision, he can accept where he is. He can live the life that’s already happening right in front of him. Will his path carry him elsewhere sometime? Perhaps, but who cares? Everything is as it is, and whether that’s on purpose or not, there is no problem.

The tricky part, of course, is that if there is no problem, “this means that there is no solution either,” Bruce noted. And humans really love solutions. Our brains want to craft them all the time — even if it means inventing problems where none exist.

Everything is One. And only the One is. Life is a bridge, build no house upon it. It’s a river, but don’t cling to its banks. You’re on a journey — and if you’re not sure where you’re going, just laugh.

In every Kung Fu Panda movie, there’s one scene where the master is trying to find inner peace. Meditating beneath a tree or inside a cave, he will repeat his mantra, yet, inevitably, distractions will arise. A bird will flap its wings. Po will come to interrupt him. Or a leaf may land on his nose.

With every disturbance, the master must ask himself a question: Do I ignore it or address it?

In one particular scene, just after Master Oogway has moved past a tiny agitation, a jade sword suddenly flies straight at him. With a sighed, “Now what?” the master catches the blade and opens his eyes. He deflects the second sword speeding his way, and when he spots his longtime adversary, he knows what he must do. “I’m ready for a rematch,” his nemesis claims. As if he had only been waiting for it, Master Oogway simply responds: “Took you long enough!”

After spending all of 2023 working solely on Four Minute Books, I felt I had done my share. That the site was in a good place, and I ready to write another book. But the universe had other plans. It threw a dagger at me, and my traffic dropped 30% overnight. Unlike Master Oogway, I wasn’t ready for it. Not flexible enough to say, “Bring it on!” My mind rebelled at the thought of adjusting. It wanted to push old ideas through a new reality.

A whopping 4 months later, I think I’m finally ready. Ready to make a hard choice. To again put the book I’m dying to write on hold. To sit with Four Minute Books and give it the full attention and effort it needs right now. Just like Oogway as he begins his fight, I don’t know if I will succeed. I don’t know if another year will bring the results the last one couldn’t. All I know is that this is what life is asking me to do, and it is the right choice to say, “Yes. Okay. Let’s walk this path.” If this is the road to inner peace, then so be it!

Sometimes, inner peace is as simple as letting noise be noise and continuing to meditate. But every now and then, only giving yourself fully to the challenge at hand will do the trick. Know which kind of interruption you’re facing, and remember that giving up is also giving. Your last fight may not yet be behind you, but you’re a master — so no matter what it takes, you’ll always find your way back to inner peace.

Yesterday, my girlfriend and I met some friends of hers who happened to be in town. They kindly brought us a gift: a tin of hot chocolate powder from Harrods. Whoa! How cool is that?

This morning, what did I do first? I made hot chocolate. I carefully poured the powder into the fancy green-and-gold tin from its bag. I read the instructions. I mixed the powder with some hot milk into a smooth blend, then added the rest, and gave it good stir.

One sip confirmed it: Ahh, yes, this is hot chocolate worthy of a king — and even though I’m missing the final “g” in my name to get all the letters together for that title, today, I have the privilege of enjoying it.

When you receive a gift, especially from someone you’re not too close with, it’s easy to miss the forest for the trees. “I wonder how much this cost. Let me look it up. Should I really have paid for their dinner?” “I prefer tea over hot chocolate.” “This tin doesn’t fit into my kitchen color-wise. Where am I supposed to put it?”

Sometimes, we might even torpedo the generosity for no reason at all. “I’m trying to skip sweets this month.” “The sugar in the powder will mess up my protein-focused diet.” “What if I get bloated from the milk?” Hello! Are you still here? You just received a gift. It was for you, not about you. Why don’t you just enjoy it?

We spend much time wishing for free passes to anything in life, yet when we receive them, we often dismiss them solely because they didn’t happen to be the exact golden ticket that we wanted. Perhaps you can’t have free seats to a Broadway show, but you might get a large sample of popcorn at the candy store the next day.

Instead of hoping for particular gifts and dismissing the wrong ones, we should expect none of them and celebrate every one we receive. That way, we win once instead of losing twice.

When the hot chocolate is free, drink it. Savor life’s gifts when you receive them.

“When you drop a pebble into a pool of water, the pebble starts a series of ripples that expand until they encompass the whole pool. This is exactly what will happen when I give my ideas a definite plan of action.” Bruce Lee wrote these words when he was just 21 years old.

In the same letter, he provided an exact image of what he wanted to achieve: “I can see painted on a canvas of my mind a picture of a fine, big five or six storey Gung Fu Institute with branches all over the States.” Bruce didn’t ask the universe to “be a Kung Fu master” or “become a famous actor.” He asked for a big building with at least five floors where actual teaching would be happening. In a different letter, he wrote: “I, Bruce Lee, will be the first highest paid Oriental super star in the United States.”

“Know what you want,” he advised us. The what and the why are far more important than the how. The how will have to change countless times before you get there — but if you set the what and why in stone, the when becomes only a matter of time. “I don’t really worry about the reward, but to set in motion the machinery to achieve it,” Bruce wrote.

In Hermann Hesse’s book Siddhartha, the eponymous young Brahman explains to the beautiful but incredulous Kamala how he, too, will achieve his goals in a similar fashion: “When you throw a rock into the water, it will speed on the fastest course to the bottom of the water. This is how it is when Siddhartha has a goal, a resolution. Siddhartha does nothing, he waits, he thinks, he fasts, but he passes through the things of the world like a rock through water, without doing anything, without stirring; he is drawn, he lets himself fall. His goal attracts him, because he doesn’t let anything enter his soul which might oppose the goal.”

How does it work? Why does it work? No one really knows. Whether you call it visualization, “the secret,” or goal-setting doesn’t matter. What matters is that you clearly outline your dreams, commit to them, and then let the universe guide you on your journey. “This is what Siddhartha has learned among the Samanas. This is what fools call magic and of which they think it would be effected by means of the daemons. Nothing is effected by daemons, there are no daemons. Everyone can perform magic, everyone can reach his goals, if he is able to think, if he is able to wait, if he is able to fast.”

Don’t be a blade of grass swept around on the ocean. Be a rock dropped in water, and let gravity do the rest.

As I’m learning to navigate the world with a new theme — “Rise” — this is turning out to be the hardest part. Not that rising above external bullshit, adversity, and distractions is easy. A few weeks into the new year, that, too, has already demanded plenty of discipline and focus. But the hardest obstacles to sniff out are those right in front of my nose. The ones I assume to be part of my identity or even outright advantages.

One realization in that department was that if I’m trying to write a book, perhaps that’s not the best time to work on the daily blogs that have been sitting in my drafts folder for months. Usually, those end up there because they take far more time than a short, unpolished insight. Sometimes, they turn into proper essays. And when you’re trying to push your creative boundaries with an uncertain payoff while still running a business, most likely, all of your creative energy deserves to go into that one big project.

It hurts to not write everything I want to write. Yet I can never work on all of my ideas at the same time anyway. Strategic shelving and later revisiting of projects is the mature thing to do — and even if it means letting go of a version of myself I like and respect, if that’s what it takes to soar, then letting go is what I will do.

Rise above roadblocks, petty insults, and nonsensical diversions, sure. But most of all, rise above your former self. You’re a phoenix meant to fly in the sun, and nothing and no one should stop you from gliding in its glory — not even yourself.

Yesterday, a friend came over for dinner. When I asked her what her weekend plans were, she said: “Sleep in and maybe, just maybe, I can clean up my room. That would be my dream.” It reminded me of the time my sister said the same about having an Aperol spritz to-go when visiting Munich.

While I jokingly told both of them the same thing — that they needed bigger dreams — I can appreciate the humility. Whenever we need it the most, small but meaningful aspirations can give us something our grandest visions can’t: an immediate sense of joy and fulfillment.

Whether it’s cleaning up your room, having a drink outside, or, in my case, looking at a bunch of Pokémon cards while the sun shines into your office: If a tiny dream is all it takes to make your weekend, that’s a wonderful thing. Don’t let your biggest goals take that way from you.

Wishes are valid in all shapes and sizes, and it doesn’t always take a visit from Santa for you to receive the gift you hope for the most.

Why do kung fu movies inspire us even when we’re not martial artists? Because the virtues embodied by the masters are universal. That’s not a coincidence.

Translated literally, “kung fu” means “skill achieved through hard work and discipline,” Shannon Lee explains in Be Water, My Friend. It refers to any ability earned with practice, effort, and patience.

Therefore, “it is possible to have good kung fu in anything,” Shannon says: “mathematics kung fu, mothering kung fu, public speaking kung fu.” You can even have “life kung fu” or “you kung fu.”

How many hours have you dedicated to learning how to navigate life’s many challenges? How much have you practiced being your true self? Everything is learnable, and in every skill, there is at least some learning at its root. That is the message.

While there is something to be said about picking your kung fu and fully dedicating yourself to it, there is also comfort in knowing you can get better at anything, even if you might not become the best in the world at it.

I was never a great nor a particularly eager cook, but since moving in with my girlfriend, I enjoy it a lot more. Cooking finally has a purpose that extends beyond feeding myself, and so I’ve started cooking regularly. I pick recipes, buy ingredients, and don’t mind if it takes me an hour or two to get everything right. Sometimes, I even improvise and it works out. In other words, I’ve come a long way from barely being able to make scrambled eggs. I now have some cooking kung fu.

Perhaps the best part about the ubiquity of kung fu, however, is that it allows you to appreciate skill in others. When your waiter serves you the cappuccino in one fluid motion off his tray, all while wearing as mile, your waiter has kung fu. When a cyclist shows the awareness to stop and let you cross the street, the cyclist has kung fu. And when your boss tells you to leave early because she can sense you have somewhere important to be, your boss has kung fu.

Everything is learnable, and in every skill, there is at least some learning at its root. That learning took practice, effort, and patience. Somebody showed up and brought those virtues, and that’s why you now get to admire said skill. Everything has kung fu — be grateful when you see it.

Once he becomes the king of Kattegat, Vikings-protagonist Ragnar Lothbrok quickly learns that everyone close to a ruler tends to have their own agenda.

His brother Rollo is jealous and would like to rule himself. The beautiful Aslaug wants to lure Ragnar away from his wife, hoping his power will protect her. For the next four seasons, Ragnar will suffer betrayal after betrayal, fighting one uphill battle after the next.

In the entire show, there is only one character who seems to go along with whatever Ragnar suggests: Athelstan, an English monk whom Ragnar hauled back to Norway as a slave. Of all people, Athelstan has the most reason to plot against Ragnar, yet he never does. As a Christian, he is a believer in kindness, love, and patience.

The more time he spends in Kattegat, however, the more Athelstan realizes that the ways of the Northmen are also fascinating. So are their many gods, from Odin to Thor, Freyja, and Loki. Wherever he goes, Athelstan listens. He asks questions. He meets people with understanding instead of prejudice.

Ragnar, too, notices that Athelstan seems to be the only one capable of looking beyond his own ambition. As a result, he frees him. Over time, Athelstan becomes a great warrior, well-versed in the Norwegians’ traditions and even their language. He fights with them, raids with them, and one day fathers a son, breaking his vows of celibacy.

Eventually, Athelstan returns home to England, where he once again becomes a monk, once again earning a king’s trust for so willingly upending his life. Athelstan illustrates holy texts and offers counsel to whoever asks for it.

Considered a wanderer between cultures, Athelstan isn’t met with a friendly eye wherever he goes. One day, yet again home in Norway, a jealous viking can no longer restrain himself, and Athelstan meets his maker.

Years later, as Ragnar sits across King Ecbert of Wessex, there’s only one thing the two iconic rulers can agree on: They both loved Athelstan as their closest friend, and they miss him dearly. More than for lost wives, brothers, even children, they long for Athelstan. They see him in their dreams. He guides them on the right path where no one else can.

Why Athelstan? What makes him so compelling? The answer, I believe, is that Athelstan was the only one without expectations. Wherever life carried him, he would allow it. “I am to be a slave? Then let it be so.” “I am to be a viking warrior? Then let it be so.” “I am to love this woman? Then let it be so.”

In a world so corrupt, so full of betrayal and hidden incentives, how could anyone just go with the flow? By letting go of judgment. Just because Ragnar enslaved him does not make Ragnar a bad man, Athelstan believed. Where others applied case-closed-thinking and plotted their revenge, Athelstan kept his mind and heart open. Who knows what’ll happen tomorrow? And indeed, tomorrow always made for a surprise.

Despite having no claim to fame nor being the strongest warrior, ultimately, Athelstan held the most sway over those in power — because he himself wielded the greatest one of all: the power of no expectations.

Today, the world is less deadly but no less complicated. A lack of expectations is still as fresh a breath of air as it was in the ninth century, and perhaps also still the — maybe the only one there ever was — ultimate power.

Drop your assumptions. Let go of judgment. Love the world and live with open arms. It might not fall at your feet, but even if the road comes with many twists and turns, life is better without expectations.

“Until the 1600s when clocks became ubiquitous, people rarely thought about time,” Paul Millerd writes in The Pathless Path. “English historian E.P. Thompson noted that instead, people thought in terms of activities. In Madagascar, a half-hour was a ‘rice cooking,’ and a brief moment was ‘frying a locust.'”

Only once clocks became commonplace did we start equating time with money, Paul explains. We stopped “passing” the time and started “spending” it. In doing so, “we can make trade‑offs, calculations, and coordinate global meetings, but we also decrease any sense of abundance.” We gain a better economical sense of our hours, but we lose our inner peace.

Nowadays, we say “time is money,” but actually, we’re just pretending — because that’s not true at all, is it?

Time isn’t something you can save, put away for a rainy day, and spend in larger quantities when you need to. You can’t stash away a week for when your parent gets sick or to take a vacation when you feel burned out.

Time isn’t fungible. The value of each additional unit depends highly on when we receive it. An extra day of life might be worth little to you if you’re stuck in a wheelchair in your 80s, but an extra day of watching your son grow up as a young mother could be priceless.

We routinely and casually trade money for time, from hiring an editor to ordering an Uber to buying ready-made meals, but when time is the thing we’re asked to give up, we tighten up and exercise extreme scrutiny.

Clearly, the two are not the same. Perhaps it’s time we stopped “spending” — and pretending.

Time passes with or without us. From time’s perspective, what we do — whether we even exist — is irrelevant. It will keep flowing. Under that paradigm, we can take a more relaxed attitude towards time. We’re paddlers floating in a river, and though we have some control of where we’re going, we can never go ashore. The river will keep carrying us regardless.

If time keeps passing no matter what we do, perhaps it’s not such a bad thing if some hours just pass us by. We sleep until we wake up. We idle and contemplate nature. Time still moves us forward, even when we’re not moving.

Absent the meddling force of money, even the question of how we can pass our time deliberately changes. Why shouldn’t taking two hours to cook a healthy, tasty meal for your partner be a perfectly acceptable way to pass the time? Why would a mid-day break to read an hour of fiction be a bad thing?

Remove the incessant guilt of “I should be using my time to make money,” and suddenly, work is just one way to pass the time — not in any way superior to all the others, let alone our only concern. Most of our scarcity complexes today revolve around money, so once we equate it with time, we project those same complexes on the clock, even if the dynamics are rather different.

Once time becomes money, there can never be enough of it, and the endless chase begins. That’s a foolish game to play with a resource whose supply is already fixed. You’ll have as much time as you’ll have on this earth. Not a minute more or less. Money, on the other hand, is a means you can generate infinitely more of or at least replenish on a regular basis. In fact, as you get more skilled at making money, you’ll be able to create more of it faster. Your capacity to earn more money goes up over time, whereas every minute passed in the river has forever flown down the stream.

Before time was money, working more than you had to was frowned upon. Idleness, deep thought, beauty, and relaxation took precedent over running the grindstone. This isn’t to say that, today, work can’t add meaningfully to our lives, but if we spend all our time in hopes of making more money — or even fretting about why we’re not using our time to make more money — the best things in life will, ironically, pass right by us.

Don’t spend your time. Pass it. Don’t let the coins bully you in a way the clock never would, and remember: Time is not money.